Week In Reviews: Best Bites

At Aretsky's Patroon, "modern American Mad Men... [eat] steaks the size of weights at the gym [and pick] at tall piles of onion rings." [Sifton; NYT]

"The main reason to come" to A Taste of Shanghai, "to travel some distance with desire pulsing in your stomach... [is the] braised pork shoulder in brown sauce." [Sifton; NYT]

The Greenpoint café Eat is "worlds away from New York's super-heated restaurant scene," with a "refreshingly abstemious quality to the food that even an old omnivore... can appreciate, and sometimes crave." [R&P; NYM]

At Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecôte, with only steak frites on the menu, the signature sauce "overwhelms the meat. This is great if you like thyme, and a bit limiting if you don't." [Paumgarten; New Yorker]

Sapthagiri in Jersey City is proof that "further surprises await us from the vegetarian cuisine of southern India." [Sietsema; VV]

Roberta's "flawlessly echoes the pioneering spirit of Bushwick," Richman writes; their "fatty and succulent pork chop" could "bring about a rebirth of what is basically a frontier community." [Richman; GQ]

Roman's is "the perfect neighborhood restaurant...for ADD diners," says Cheshes, where "the abbreviated selection and modest portions mean that a table of four can order every dish." [Cheshes; TONY]